CMOs have the highest turnover rate in the C-suite, with an average tenure ranging from 35 to 41 months, and even lower at 24 to 36 months among B2B Tech CMOs, according to Forbes/IDC.

The pandemic has further intensified the challenges faced by CMOs as marketing becomes more tightly integrated with technology, and companies undergo digital transformation initiatives.

B2B CMOs are tasked with multiple responsibilities, including managing the company’s brand, creating pipeline for new business, developing engaging content for prospects and customers, and enabling sales teams.

Marketing also plays a central role in collaborating with internal stakeholders such as sales, business units, customer success, and IT, as well as external stakeholders such as customers, partners, and analysts/influencers. Marketing touches every important stakeholder in the customer lifecycle, making the role of the CMO complex and challenging.

Why do CMOs have high turnover?

One of the reasons for the high turnover rate among CMOs is the dependency on internal stakeholders to serve and satisfy external stakeholders.

Marketing can create great content, but if there is a gap in sales enablement, sales teams may not use it effectively. According to CSO Insights, Marketing generates enormous content, but 70% to 80% of it is not used by Sales, and Sales spends nearly 30% of their time looking for or creating new content.

In addition, marketing is often dependent on product development and engineering teams for creating content, but uncertain roadmaps and timelines can create challenges in delivering on marketing promises to customers.

CMOs may face issues with changing industry dynamics, mismatched goals and expectations with the company and its leadership, and inadequate resources such as budget or staff.

CMOs may also make mistakes such as not understanding their target audience’s needs, preferences, and pain points, or focusing too much on short-term results at the expense of long-term goals.

CMOs should prioritize marketing portfolio investments based on return on investment (ROI) metrics and evaluate spend. This includes identifying and investing in channels and sources that generate the most value and align with marketing goals, as well as optimizing the use of existing tools and resources to maximize their impact.

4 Nuggets for Success for CMOs in a new job

To succeed in a new CMO role, here are four nuggets for success:

1. Exercise Caution  while changing the Organization Structure and  Design

Whenever a new CMO comes in, there are high expectations and pressure from the company leadership to work on the brand, drive growth entering new markets, upselling and cross-selling.

It is important for the CMO to get to know the  CEO’s goals and objectives, meet with  leadership peers and then most importantly their direct reports: their leadership team. Some CMOs come in and change their leadership team within a year. The composition of their new leadership team is mostly people who they have worked with in prior companies, new recruits and a few from the previous incumbent  team.

It is understandable that most leaders including CMOs prefer people who they worked with in the past as there is a sense of trust and reliability to get the work done, the issue arises when you let go of incumbent leaders, there is also attrition in their subordinates reporting to them and trickles down further down in the organization.

The company loses a lot of good knowledge workers and there is a brain drain. With the CMOs changing every 2-3 years, it is not good for the marketing organization in the company.

Be mindful of the human element when making changes to the organization’s structure. Assess how the changes may impact the way people work together, collaborate, and communicate, and proactively manage any potential cultural shifts. Change can be emotionally challenging for employees, so provide support and resources to help them navigate through the transition.

It impacts morale and  psychological safety: belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.

(Is your organization practicing Psychological Safety?).

2. Do Thorough Due Diligence while Evaluating Campaign and Content Strategy

Some CMOs feel the need to do a brand refresh and have new campaigns. It is essential that the CMO review all the previous campaigns over 3-5  years, see what is working and tweak them. Every campaign is always done for a particular reason- it may be for the right or wrong but one needs to assess the value.

New brand campaigns every year can confuse the customer as the company keeps changing their messaging with every new CMO.

It also confuses the sales personnel as they are just getting used to one brand message that in a few quarters they need to change to the new one.

The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) in their survey found out that organizations don’t take a strategic approach to manage content primarily due to lack of processes, leadership hasn’t made it a priority and lack of financial investment in resources.

In some organizations, the content creators may not exist in the marketing organization and may reside in different business units. This creates a layer of organizational complexity as there needs to be delineated roles and responsibilities to avoid competing objectives while creating content.

Companies need to have documented content strategy across the go to market organization where they audit, review the types of content used during the various stages of the sales lifecycle. The content needs to be relevant, timebound, accessible, easily consumable, creditable, pruned and usage measured effectively. ( 7 Tenets bridging the content gap between Sales and Marketing )

3. Leverage and Amplify the Voice of Customer to the Maximum

Today buyers increasingly measure the value of products and services not just by features and benefits, but their experience throughout their journey; buying process, deployment times, ease of use and most importantly post sale support.

All products claim to be fast, eco-friendly and efficient. Competitors catch up quickly with product features. This type of commoditized feature similarity makes it difficult for marketers to differentiate.

There is no better way for the customers that buy from you to become your brand ambassador recommending you.

Virality (word of mouth) is more important and relevant for B2B companies than ever before. Buyers trust their peers’ or ex colleague’s validation.

CMOs should emphasize that their marketing team members meet with customers because it is one of the best ways to invest time and energy. They need to talk about their  business outcomes,  get feedback and pass it on to other functions as well as tailor the marketing messaging towards those outcomes. This helps in building advocacy, upselling and cross-selling.

The Executive Briefing Center (EBC) is one of the best sources to get customer feedback and encourage every marketing team member to attend meetings as it is about Customer Listening- the pain points – what is working and what isn’t? This is beneficial for prospects as well as existing customers.

The sales teams need to be encouraged to use customer references  earlier in the buyer’s journey. Sales teams think about customer references when they are closing a deal or just passively earlier while listing customer references in the RFP (request for proposal).

With the right Customer Advocacy strategy, customers can do your selling and  can turn skeptics to advocates.

(Leverage Value from B2B Reviews:Amplify Customer Voice)

4. Focus  on Top of Mind Executional Priorities of the Internal and External Stakeholders

Marketing collaborates with internal (Sales, Business Units, Customer Success, IT ) and the external (Customers, Partners and Analysts/ Influencers). It touches every important stakeholder in the customer lifecycle.

Here are stakeholder executional  priorities for the CMO and  their leadership team.

EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS

Customers

• Branding- Creating a brand that truly resonates with the customer
• Product / Portfolio Marketing- Right Size consumable content showcasing existing features & functionality of the product and creating buzz for new releases. Develop a portfolio/ solutions strategy that promotes cross selling.
• Pricing/ Promotions/ Campaigns- Running effective long lasting campaigns, that creates quality leads for net new logos
• Digital– Building a Digital Website Presence, social media, SEO strategy that boosts pipeline
• Competitive & Market Intelligence- Understanding market landscape, Monitoring the competitor product launches, knowing own product  and competitor strengths and  shortcomings
• Event Management– Investing in the right physical events/ shows/ meetups  promoting the brand
• Customer Marketing & Advocacy– Amplifying the Voice of the Customer and building a trusted Customer Advisory Board

Partners/ Channel

• Marketing- Creating the right value proposition and incentives for the partner/channel to promote their products than that of the competitors

Analyst/Influencer Relations/ Public Relations

• Analyst/ Influencers– Cultivating relationships with lead industry analyst/ influencers and aspiring to be in leadership in Analyst Benchmarks (Quadrants & Waves)
• Press– Ensure visible coverage for marquee events and product launches

INTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS

Product Management

• New Releases– Aligning on the product roadmap understanding timelines for key upcoming features / functionality or new products

Sales

• Field Marketing– Ensuring the sales teams get the leads, marketing content for enablement  and promoting  Account based marketing
• Inside Sales Handoff– Providing quality leads to Inside Sales, right campaign  messaging and objection handling
• Sales Enablement-Providing the right content and tools during the sales cycle and educating about campaigns and promotions.

Customer Success

Customer Support & Services Feedback– Collating all the customer  feedback to incorporate in the marketing such as NPS

IT

• Digital Infrastructure– Integrating and ensuring there is business continuity, performance and  availability for the customer facing applications.

SUMMARY

CMOs are responsible for various functions, including brand management, creating pipeline, content creation, and sales enablement.

However, CMOs face challenges such as gaps in sales enablement, delays or changes in product development, misaligned goals and expectations, inadequate resources, and mistakes in targeting and messaging.

CMOs need to adapt to changing industry dynamics, prioritize data analytics, and make strategic investments.

Four nuggets for success in a new CMO role include exercising  caution  while changing the organization structure and  design, doing  thorough due diligence while evaluating campaign and content strategy, leveraging and amplifying the Voice of Customer to the maximum and focus  on Top of Mind executional priorities of the internal and external stakeholders

CMOs should prioritize marketing portfolio investments based on return on investment (ROI) metrics and evaluate spend. This includes identifying and investing in channels and sources that generate the most value and align with marketing goals, as well as optimizing the use of existing tools and resources to maximize their impact.

REFERENCES

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/06/28/lessons-learned-as-a-stand-in-chief-marketing-officer/?sh=7d05de17a466

https://www.pjmconsult.com/index.php/2016/03/shelf-life-tech-company-cmo.html

https://www.shiftparadigm.com/insights/priorities-for-your-first-90-days-as-cmo/